Letter: A great job at ski club

I read the article about Mark Cole’s resignation (“Cole steps down from Aspen Valley Ski/Snowboard Club,” The Aspen Times, Feb. 28) and felt compelled to write a letter.

I had the pleasure of working with Mark almost his entire career at AVSC as he engaged my accounting firm to provide accounting for the organization. In that time, I was able to watch Mark grow the club from a grassroots neighborhood organization to one of the valley’s most prominent nonprofits. I don’t have the numbers and statistics, but to put it bluntly, under Mark’s leadership, he took the organization from a shoebox to a major valley nonprofit with one goal in mind: to provide skiing for kids in the valley. While Mark was respectful of the rich history of the club and its ability to produce world-class winter-sports athletes, he never lost track of the reality that a local club was a lot more than statistics and achievement of sport. Rather, the “club” nature was his goal, and he realized that through mass and participation, all the accolades would come naturally, but all kids needed access to winter sports no matter their ability, ambition, whatever. Today, the club caters to literally thousands of families and kids, and winter sports are alive and well. But Mark also brought organization to the club that, at the time and today, it was in need of. He worked tirelessly, selflessly and professionally to use his background from other highly successful nonprofits, and he modified the organization through experience to get the club where it is today, one of the finest ski clubs in the world if not the finest.

I could go on and probably write a book on all that Mark accomplished, but suffice it to say, from the trenches of the club over the past 15 years, with a firsthand view working with Mark most of those years, as much as he is respected and appreciated, no one will ever really know the extent of how he rolled up his sleeves, how difficult the job was at times and how he always got down and dirty no matter the situation to simply get the job done. I never saw him lose his cool, and it was always a pleasure working with him.

Thanks, Mark. It was a hell of a ride, and you did a fantastic job!

Mike Marolt

Aspen